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The End of All Our Exploring is a book about trying to delve deeper with your friendship with God. From my personal and professional experiences as a psychologist and pastor, it investigates what it takes to create a relationship with God. You can have my book for free when you enter your email below and subscribe to my blog.

When I was in middle school, I loved basketball. I was always next door at the Egan’s shooting hoops with kids in the neighborhood or by myself. I was so dedicated and I have many memories of playing in the dead of the winter wearing out gloves my mom bought me.

My freshman year I went out for the team and made it. However, I was the proverbial bench player. When I did play, I was awful – my hands just didn’t work like they did when I was playing next door. After that season, I realized I just wasn’t very good at basketball, not at least playing at the high school level. That was a very deflating experience because I thought what now? What do I do with my life now—I really thought I might be the next Dr. J…

That spring, I decided I would ditch basketball and take up tennis. Now this was different from playing basketball; right from the start I was fairly decent. While I wasn’t the worlds greatest tennis player, I did play on the team throughout my high school years and was probably good enough to play at the college where I went. There was difference in playing tennis versus basketball—it was natural for me.

This taught me an important lesson which I keep relearning in my life. When it applies to what you do whether it is your work or what you do for fun, you should:

Spend your time focusing on things that you are innately gifted at

Spend your time focusing on things in your life that are life-giving

Sometimes I meet people who do the opposite of this. They spend a lot of time doing things that they are not gifted at and most importantly, pursue things that are not life-giving. Now granted when it comes to what we do for a living we sometimes don’t have a choice in these matters. However, what we do outside of that part of our life, it is vital that we focus on pursuits that are life-giving.

As one example in my life today, painting is very life-giving for me. While I don’t have the talent of a Van Gogh, I am also not too shabby. By putting this into practice, I’ve gotten better and most importantly, when I paint I get energized and it flows into other areas of my life. This is just one of those life-giving aspects—it is when you know that you are becoming good at doing something.

The other thing is this—doing these types of things also help me to connect in my relationship with God at a deep level. Essentially, painting for me is worship. It is a time in which I can release the stress of the day. It is a time in which I can try to tune into his voice. Like many who might be into woodworking, knitting, running, you name any hobby—I am not only learning on how to do something well, this thing that I do also strengthens my relationship with God.

So what do you do on a regular basis with your free time that is life-giving?

One of my favorite assignments while in seminary was in a Systematic Theology class where we had to write creeds and confessions. A creed or confession is simply a statement about some aspect of faith for an individual or community. Creeds are not intended to be comprehensive, but to be a summary of core beliefs and in writing them, it can help us fine tune what we believe. It is a wonderful and thought-provoking exercise to put down on paper in terms of what you believe about a certain issue. I highly recommend you try it. Below are some of my beliefs about God.

From the beginning, He shows us that he is the Creator; He created the heavens, the earth and all that lives. He made the seen and the unseen: ocean and wind; animals and angels.[1] Most importantly, he created us, his masterpiece and child.[2] An important part of his nature is creativity as seen by all that he has uniquely made. God is an uncreated Spirit, and he is substantially more than any person we could imagine.[3]

God is holy and is vastly different from us and anything he created; he is dependent on nothing and no person, and indestructible from any power or person.[4]Everything separated from him has no life.[5] There is no place where he can not be found and likewise, there is nothing that can contain him.[6] God is always right in everything he does; not once has he made a mistake or been wrong in a decision. He is fair and full of mercy; nothing evil is found in him.

There is a security found in God. He does not change in his character; he is consistent and constant. He is perfect and good in every way. However, he must always reject anything opposed to the way he designed the world, namely sin. He is honest; he always speaks the truth and can not lie. At the same time, he can be deeply moved; just as with him, it is he who gave us our emotions.[7]

God moves the world in the direction of his purpose. He knows the beginning, the end, and most everything in between. But because He has chosen to make children rather than dolls, he doesn’t know every detail.[8] He is strong and able for anything; nothing can stand in his way.[9] Because of this relationship, God can be flexible in our relationship with him. By living in relationship with us, he sometimes changes his mind on account of us.[10] Though he is in control, he is not controlling. He can take charge, but he can also leave us room to move and grow. However, he does give us the choice to follow him or walk away; if we do choose to walk away, we will experience our greatest loss.[11]

God is highly personal; His greatest passion is relationships and his greatest desire is to be in friendship with us, his most remarkable creation. He is close and involved because he wants to be known. Though he has no beginning or end, he enters time to rescue us, his lost children; he is not removed from the world and its brokenness.[12] He is not selfish or has his life centered on himself.[13] At one point in history, he literally entered our world to die for us and ransom our lives. He experiences the greatest loss so that we may live. He is friend to the unlovely and the lost; anyone who comes to him, he does not reject.[14] He is the most authentic love we will ever find.[15]

In the end, He will bring justice and perfection.[16] His creativity, which began with a purpose, ends with a purpose that is everlasting and focused on a relationship with those who come to him.[17]

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Exodus 33:11

I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers, but hold up a ship.Michelle Williams

I have a picture in my office at home that might be the one thing that I own that I treasure the most. It is a picture taken in 1972 of me and my grandfather. He and I are sitting snuggled tight in his favorite chair. He is wearing a plaid, blue and white checkered short-sleeve shirt; he has on his Saturday khakis that he would wear while working in his enormous garden; and he is sporting some glasses that kids today would say are hipster and cool. I am wearing some blue shorts, an orange shirt, and the biggest smile a five year old could have. Why is this picture so important to me? It is the perfect image of who Jesus is to me today — me sitting in his lap.

My grandfather was easily the most important person to me when I was growing up. I could argue that there has not been a deeper influence on me in all of my life. Let me share a little back ground. The year that picture was taken is when my biological dad left my mom and I. One day, he just picked up and left and never turned back. I don’t really have any memories of my dad in those years and it wasn’t until I was nineteen that I went and searched him out and finally met him. At that moment in time, when I was just five years old, it seemed as if I was left fatherless. How untrue that really was.

When my dad packed his bags and left, it left my mom in a serious bind—she was now a single mom, she only had a part-time job and a mortgage to pay. We were always close to my grandparents and so the most sensible thing to do was to move in with them. We moved just a couple of miles away and for two years we lived with my grandparents in their small two bedroom home with its one bathroom. I think at best its size would be about 750 square feet—in today’s standards, it would be considered a small apartment. For the entirety of their fifty-five year marriage, my grandparents lived and died there. Though it was small, it was the perfect home.

As you can imagine, with this sort of background, my grandparents had a humble and simple life. To this day, I am so grateful for that heritage. My grandfather worked for over forty years at the local Roper plant making refrigerators and stoves. My grandmother worked as well—second-shift at a factory that she also gave forty years of her life. I have vivid memories in that fifth year of mine, when my mom and I lived with my Grandma and Grandpa Stutz. Every week night my grandfather and I at ten o’clock at night would drive and pick up my grandmother from work, because she never learned how to drive. When we would awake the next morning, I can remember an early breakfast being made by my grandmother’s hand—always an egg, two strips of bacon, a piece of toast and some sweet orange juice from the carton. And most importantly, I remember my grandfather, a solid place to stand in a time of confusion and tumult.

My grandfather was a simple, but an extraordinary man. He served on the board of his church for many years. He was an extremely devoted family man, where even to this day, not just I, but most of my cousins would also tell you that he was one of the most important persons also in their lives. And he had two vices—he loved the Chicago Cubs and he enjoyed wearing nice clothes. My grandfather was the sharpest dressed man at his church, and you would have never guessed that during the work week he was getting his hands greasy and grimy working under a factory roof. He bought some of the finest suits, fedoras and ties, and he taught me early on that “it’s the clothes that make the man.” And he loved the Cubs—a “gift” he gave to me which to this day I will never forgive him because they are always losing. On many occasions, I remember driving up to Wrigley Field, both just he and I, or with some senior group, and we would sit in Wrigley Field and watch the Cubs lose another baseball game. Here is a fitting antidote—I think in all of the games I personally went to—the Cubs won only one game…

As I have alluded to, my grandfather was one of the hardest working people I have ever known, but beyond that, he was a good man. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone. He was always honest, even to the point that on one occasion I remember him returning to the bank teller because she gave him an extra five dollar bill. He was an ever-faithful and loving husband. That was what my grandfather was to me—he was solid, like a branch of a tree that you could hang onto and know it would never break. Everyone should have a person like my grandfather in their life, because for me, in a way, he is a picture of what God must be like—generous, kind, caring, wise, faithful, sacrificing, humble—I could go on and on.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Jesus can be this person for us and we can have someone even more solid than what my grandfather was for me. When Jesus spoke about himself, he clearly emphasized that he desires a deep relationship with us, even to the point of calling it friendship (John 15:15). He wants to be a safe, secure place for us where we can learn more and more about him and where we can learn just as much about ourselves. In our relationship with God, we can ease our lives into His and become who we were meant to be. This is what he told us it would be like. We will look into his face, friend to friend, and it would be as natural as anything we have ever experienced.

But for any of this to begin, we need to seriously look at our lives. Are you caught in that believer stage of faith? Is God distant from you because it is you that has moved away from him? Could you care less about how you live life and you truly think that the choices that you make don’t matter? Have you grown up in the church, but never made a genuine commitment to God, making the claim that you were going to live for him and him only? Perhaps you are the type of person who at the end of the day, you live your life as if you don’t need God. Is that you—are you so self-sufficient that God is a nuisance in how you want to live? But with all of this, you also know that your life is not on track and that just around the corner a crisis of some kind could overtake you. Are you in a place in your life that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you realize that your whole life needs a significant overhaul?

For others, perhaps you grew up in the church, but this thing about friendship with God is entirely foreign to you. Does everything have to be perfect and in its right place in your life, but in living this way, you never seem to add up to this standard? Have you when you look back over the years, you have served in many different ways, but almost always out of obligation and not because you really wanted to? And there is something else—deep down, something is missing, and also something is hidden in you that is dark and secret. Instead of being in friendship with God, you really have become just a religious person. Yes, you can speak eloquently about grace or forgiveness, but to know this deep down in your soul, you’ve never really experienced that (and somehow, someway you would really like to). Perhaps a common theme for your life is control—to control your relationships, your marriage, your kids, even your relationship with God. If this is you, Jesus is waiting for you—grab his hand and learn how to become his friend.

There are many shapes and sizes to being a Christian. But with this, we need to make our days count and attempt to develop our relationship with the One who created us. The choice is ours—whether it is living indifferently or ungraciously toward the seriousness of our lives. Life is short and we need to make the most of it, especially as it relates to becoming a friend to God. In our kitchen for about sixteen years has hung a picture that quotes a Psalm: it says this:

Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

We need to count our days and the wisest thing we can ever do is move into a friendship with Jesus. For the person who keeps God at a distance in whatever way they do, they miss out on so much. Remember, he wants all of our lives, not just the edges or the crumbs of our lives. Some years ago, I came across the beautiful epitaph that the poet Gregory Corso wrote for himself. It lies etched on his gravestone in Rome. It simply reads:

Spirit

is Life

It flows thru

the death of me

endlessly

like a river

unafraid

of becoming

the sea

On some level, we are all afraid to come to God. No different than Adam and Eve after they had wronged the One who had created them, each of us looks for all kinds of ways to run and hide.But in every situation in our lives, he is right there trying to find where we are hiding. For each and every person, no matter where they are, where they come from or what kind of lives they lead, he is waiting for each of us to courageously pursue him. Each and every day, he is speaking to us in a singular way. Just as he wishes to be sought after, he will pursue us in creative ways—we just need to have our eyes open to his coming. Just like that river in Corso’s epitaph, we have to decide to be unafraid of moving into the sea. To be unafraid of the most daunting thing we will ever do—to learn how to be friends with God, to truly be in relationship with him. When we do this, when we make that decision—we will then be able to swim out to him into the waves that at first we thought would overtake us. But here was the reality of the situation—we didn’t need to swim at all. We could actually walk on the waves, because he already had showed us how. In the end, we learned how to take his hand, and we learned how to look him squarely in the face gaining a confidence we never had before. We were unafraid of what might happen when we took that first step—we were unafraid of the waters that now we could walk on with ease.

But to truly to be in relationship with God, what I have learned in walking this path with many in my practice as a counselor, my work as a pastor, and in my own life, is that your relationship to him needs to change in a unique and specific way. Let me describe what I mean by this. Within psychology, there is a theory called Transactional Analysis and it attempts to explain how we can experience relationships in a mature way. The psychologist Eric Berne in the 1960’s created this theory in which he hypothesized that we use “roles” in adulthood with the different types of relationships we have, be that with our parents, our spouse, our kids, our boss—with anyone who is in our life. The theory uses the analogy of the relationship between a parent and the child. Typically, according to Transactional Analysis, there are three different personalities or roles (Berne called them ego-states) that we use throughout life in the relationships we have:

The Parent: the role in which you will mimic how a typical parental figure behaves (e.g., instructing, talking down to the other person, always trying to control the situation, disciplining for bad behaviors, dominating the relationship, etc.)

The Child: the role in which you will regress to a place in which you behave and feel as a typical child might (e.g., allowing yourself to be talked down to, often being fearful or feeling inadequate around another person, letting yourself be controlled by the other person, rarely voicing your real opinion to the other person, etc.)

The Adult: the role in which you are “yourself”—you offer your own opinion freely; you are able to enter into conflict and disagree with the other person; you are authentic in how you are around the person; you are confident in yourself in all circumstances.

To try to make sense of all of that is above, the premise simply refers to how we act in the relationships around us—whether it is with your spouse or someone you work with—do you act like a parent, a child or do you act in a healthy way, like an adult. A real-life example of this is when I met with an attorney as a client a while back. He was a well-known defense attorney who was highly sought after and accomplished in his work. However, one of the issues that came out in counseling is that if he was ever around his dad, he would inevitably act like the thirteen year old boy he used to be. In part, his father dominated him, but in the same degree, he would also allow the relationship to continue in this unhealthy way. When he was with his dad, he would always play the part of a child who always needs help or was never quite sure of himself. Whenever he was around his dad, he was always walking on eggshells, never said what he really wanted to say, and could never really be himself. For him, his father was not a friend, and primarily that was because they didn’t have a real relationship where they could talk to one another about anything as adults. His dad had remained the parent and he continued to act like a child.

As a counselor, we encourage clients caught in these relationships to use the premise of Transactional Analysis and to act like an adult when confronted with these types of relationships and situations. We literally ask them to change the role they are playing in the relationship. In this case, when this client spent time with his dad, he needed to stay in the character of the lawyer who he was Monday to Friday and not the apprehensive teenage boy he was so many years earlier. Around his father, he needed to be sure of himself and speak what was really on his mind. Simply put, he needed to act like an adult when he was around his dad. Often, it can be the mere recognition of the role the person is playing (i.e., in this case, this man was staying in the role of the child) that people can begin to act differently in these relationships. Oftentimes, when one begins to act the part, the change can become permanent. There is no need to explore one’s past; no need for medications; no need of lengthy counseling. Relationships in our lives begin to change because we begin to change. It’s what the Bible classifies as repentance or to change one’s thinking and move in a different direction in your life. In the situation with this attorney, just after a couple of months, when he acted like himself around his father, his dad also responded in a healthy way and today they have a relationship that is growing closer. With this little change, this man and his father have a maturing friendship in which now they both can now be themselves.

This area is also one of the major catalysts in which our relationship with God can expand. When it applies to Transactional Analysis, ironically for us to deepen our relationship with God we need to stop acting like a child around him. For some of us, we literally need to change our relationship with God and learn how to be ourselves around him. Yes, we are his “children,” but we can also have an adult relationship to him. God wants us to be authentic with him, and to have a relationship in which we can say anything to him. Let me give you another parallel. Right now both of my sons are in high school and a significant way that I relate to them is as a parent. Often, I tell them what to do; I control when they are to be home; I guide them if they stray. However, in just a few years, both of them will be adults and starting a new life on their own. When that occurs, how I relate to them will have to change. I will have to move out of the role of the parent and they will have to stop acting like children. Mutual trust will become a part of the relationship. They will take responsibility for their lives and begin to truly act like adults. A friendship will emerge between my sons and I, and our relationship will mature and expand. This is precisely what God wishes for us as our relationship with him as it grows and expands.

As the infamous 13th chapter of Corinthians states: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) When I’m counseling the people that I work with—this is where I press them to go with their relationship with God—to act like an adult with him. By far, it is the most important mark of faith. It is more important than the day you were wed; more important than the day when your children were born; even more important than that day you decided to believe in God for the first time. It is truly the day that you really wake up and understand not only who God is, but just as importantly, who you are. You truly begin to relate to him like never before. You become his friend. This is the beauty of how this relationship grows, not only do I change in my relationship to him, but now God changes in how he relates to me. As I become more sure of the relationship, as I learn how to have a voice in the relationship (one here can think of Abraham’s relationship to God that we find in Genesis 18), God unveils who he is in remarkable ways. As the 16th century saint, Teresa of Ávila penned, “The feeling remains that God is on the journey too.” That is the truth, God wants to journey with us as we deepen our relationship together—he desires to be Friend, Lord and Papa—all in the same breath.

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. E.E. Cummings

What is like to be God’s child? At different points in the Scriptures, God tells us that he wants us to know him as Papa. At many different points, Jesus refers to God as “Abba,” which in our vernacular is the word we use for “papa.” It is a beautiful word, especially when one associates it with God. There maybe isn’t a better word in the English language one could use to create a picture of who he wants to be in our lives. When I think of a papa, I think of a generous father who is always looking after his children. I think of a father who is easy to be with and one with whom you can share anything. I think of a father who you can ride on his big shoulders as you swim in the ocean. I think of a father who instructs and guides you with a smile. This is one of the final steps in becoming God’s friend—to get to know him as a Papa, as a Father unlike any you have ever met.

When one goes to this place in their life, things change and life is transformed. It’s when you become okay in your own skin; humbly, you know that you are special; you look in the mirror and see a highly valued person. The Scriptures validate and insist that we are unique, sacred and tremendous creations made by his own hand and made in his image—made like him in so many ways. You’ve read it before, you’ve heard it before, you are special, you are a child of God. You were made with a great purpose and able to do great and tremendous things. You are a treasured person not just because God loves you as his first love, but also because who he made you to be—even with all of your oddities and intricacies. This truth makes me think of a quote that Thomas Lynch made about “growing up”—there is a parallel in learning to grow up and become Jesus’ friend.

There is about midlife a kind of balance, equilibrium”—neither pushed by youth nor shoved by age: we float, momentarily released from the gravity of time. We see our history and future clearly. We sleep well, dream in all tenses, wake ready and able.

God is highly relational and he wants to be in a Father-son/Father-daughter relationship with you. In this sense, I like how C.S. Lewis wrote about God’s personality and nature. He saw that God, who is triune in nature, as someone who is “super-personal.” We can’t even imagine such a person. I like that phrase Lewis uses—“super-personal”—God is personal to an extreme. Actually, he is more than a person. Think about that one for awhile. I believe there can be a comfort and an excitement that one can find in such an understanding. One day we will all stand face-to-face to this ultimately personal Person. Better yet, we can know this super-personal Person even today. This is his main joy and pursuit he wants for our lives—for us to truly know him for who he is.

But beyond learning how live in grace and truth, the other thing that some Christians have a really hard time doing is living with the grace of mystery. I remember one time my son and I were discussing dinosaurs to which he was speaking about some aspect of the issue very definitively. He demanded: “Dad, I’ve spent lots of time thinking about this and I think I’ve nailed it. I know I’m right!” While he may have thought about the issue a lot and perhaps he was right, I suggested to him that in some areas definitive thinking can also sometimes be wrong. As the infamous 13th Chapter of I Corinthians maintains, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Those who have entered into a friendship with Jesus can live in the tension of looking through that darkened glass.

One can learn how to live a life where we don’t have all the answers. A friend’s two year old drowns in their backyard pool—you don’t have to say a word. Silence is golden in times like these and when your friend asks that inevitable question, “Why did God allow this to happen?!” It is okay to just listen and sit with them in their pain. With some things that we experience in life, there are not always hard and fast answers. When a friend who is a remarkable and giving person, loses not one or two, but now three children to miscarriages, when she asks that same question, “Why does God allow this happen to me—doesn’t he understand how much I desperately want to be a mother and have a child of my own?!”—again, in these times, we see through a glass darkly.

In my own life, I have had to second-hand face these same types of questions. Julie’s parents were killed when she was just five years old. From what I’ve been told they were a wonderful couple—her dad a principal of a Christian school and her mom a devoted nurse and mother. But on a Friday evening while driving home to Michigan, a car veered into their lane and they were hit head on by an oncoming truck. Instantly, they were killed as Julie and her sister were left unharmed in the back seat. Instantly, life was dramatically changed forever for her as her mom and dad would no longer be able to be there for her. Some years ago, I was listening to a song and when I heard the lyrics I instantly thought of Julie and her loss.

I always knew you
In your mothers arms
I have called your name

And when you write a poem
I know the words
I know the sounds
Before you write it down
When you wear your clothes
I wear them too
I wear your shoes
And your jacket too

I always knew you
In your mothers arms

Rest in my arms
Sleep in my bed
There is a design
To what I did and said

Vito’s Ordination Song – Sufjan Stevens

When I listened to those words, “I always knew you in your mother’s arms” that was an image that Julie on many occasions painted for me of her own mother. We inherited from her grandmother the rocking chair that Julie and her mother would sit in when she was a little girl and this is the prominent memory she has of her mom. As the song ended the first time I heard it, the words haunted me as Sufjan Stevens uttered, “There is a design to what I did and said.” In an experience like Julie has lived out in losing a mother and father who loved her dearly, what was the purpose of them being killed on that Indiana highway? While there is a comfort in God saying to her that she can “rest in his arms;” there are still multitudes of questions that go unanswered. Julie, like you and I, live our lives by looking through a glass darkly.

Again, we don’t have to have all the answers to life’s questions. Life is complex, beyond our imagination and while God has a tremendous plan for our lives, each of us in some way or another will face tragedies and loss in some way. In doing so, we will face all kinds of questions that for now just do not have answers. As Albert Einstein said, “The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious.” Now that I am in my fourth decade, I have learned that life can sometimes be cruel and difficult at times. I have faced many challenges, in which I have cried out, God—why?! Why is there such extreme poverty? Why do children have to be hurt in some form or another? Why do people do such awful things? Why does my friend’s marriage have to fail? Why did that tornado have to sweep through that town and wipe everything and everyone out? Why is there disease and death? Why do I have to die? Why?!

A book like The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis can be helpful in trying to understand life’s complexities and challenges. I remember reading his infamous words that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” And this brought some form of answer, but not until I continued on and heard his words, “God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.”—this was the real answer I sought. I am his first love and no matter what I face that will not change, and that will not alter his plan for my life and the life of my family—no matter what we have to face—good or bad.

SOME QUESTIONS TO PONDER

An important area of our lives that some of us need to grow is learning how to live in the place of mystery—the place where we don’t have to have all the answers. In what areas of your life, do you need to do this and learn to be okay with “looking through the glass darkly?” How in your life can you become a better listener to God and to others and not always have to have the final word? How can you “let God be God” and simply rest in that assurance?

The heart is commonly reached, not through the reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description. John Henry Newman

But obviously, prayer is not just about getting what we want, and in fact, this is not even high on the list of why prayer is so crucial to our lives. At the end of the day, prayer is about fostering and growing a relationship with God. As friends to him, we have the opportunity to come into a close relationship with the One who loves us deeply. This is the central purpose of prayer—to get to know him better. Through talking, listening, responding and expecting, our relationship with God will have the ability to grow to uncharted depths. Have you ever met someone you just really like a whole lot? Someone that when you are in their presence, it is easy and fun and engaging? A person who is kind, reassuring, and listens well to your stories and concerns you share? This is who your Father is. This is the reason for prayer; to get to know this Person at his deepest levels.

Because this is one of God’s deepest drives, He wants to be known. He wants to speak. He wants to listen. And he wants to respond. If God has a desire, it is this—he deeply wants a relationship with us. This is the chief reason why he created us like himself—to be in relationship. Now, does he need to be in this relationship? If we reject this want of his, will he saunter away angry, depressed and lonely? Will he cripple under the weight of being rejected? Of course not. God is completely secure in himself and does not need a relationship with us, but in his self-giving and self-sharing nature, he wants to give himself away to anyone who would want to share in what he has to offer.

But how does one pray? How does one have a conversation with God? Of course, asking something of him is easy and straight-forward. “God, I want _____________.” But again, to have a conversation means one has to listen. How does one listen to God? The main way in which we can listen to God is through the Scriptures he gave us. But even here, the Bible is conclusive in declaring that “The Word became flesh.” (John 1:14) To listen to God on some level means that we need to engage him flesh and blood and hear the words he has to say to us personally. We want to genuinely hear his voice and while at this point in time, we cannot actually sit down and literally have a conversation with him, he still speaks. Somehow, someway, he does speak to us. Through the Holy Spirit, we can literally hear what he wants to share with us and he often does it in unique ways. In the Bible we have stories in which God spoke through a donkey, visions, an angel, even through a bush that had caught on fire. When desiring to speak with us, he will do anything to make sure that he gets his point across.

But how does one listen to God? Actually, listening to God is not complicated at all. In saying that, it does require some dedication and for you to section out time in your life to just sit and listen to him. There really isn’t a formula, but some simple guidelines would be as follows:

Set aside about thirty minutes each time you pray. Make sure you find a quiet place where you won’t be distracted. It sometimes can be good to find a favorite spot where you like to go (e.g., a favorite park, a comfy chair, outside on your deck, etc.)

To begin, take about ten minutes to read some Scripture. The Psalms or the Proverbs are a good place to start.

In terms of beginning to pray, ask for two things:

That the Lord would speak to you clearly.

That he would block out any voices from yourself or from any other demonic influence.

With a private journal that you use specially for this time of prayer, write down a question or two that would like to discuss with God. Now, wait and listen.

Without judging what you are writing, listen to your inner voice and begin writing down what you hear in your mind. You may be flooded with lots of words or just a few. Take about five to ten minutes to write what you are hearing the Holy Spirit say to you. During this time, some people like to use two pens of different color—with one, they use to write what their own thoughts are and with the other, what they believe God is saying to them.

In terms of deciding if what you heard was from God, here are some questions you should ask yourself:

Was what you wrote clear or just an impression of something? Sometimes what we write is for the present moment of our lives or for a later time when we piece together things from our lives. This is why keeping a prayer journal is important—it is so that you can go back and read it. Recently I was reading through one of my journals and I was astonished at something I had written four years ago as it clearly spoke into my life at that moment.

With what you wrote is it scriptural? Scripture is our authority and God does not contradict his Word. (Proverbs 30:5-6)

If it is an important decision that you must make, you should always speak with other Christians about what you heard God saying. Do these friends confirm what you heard God say? (Proverbs 20:18, Proverbs 15:22)

This is a rudimentary framework for attempting to listen to God. If you would like to delve deeper, I highly suggest you read the classic by Leanne Payne entitled Listening Prayer. It will be worth your time. Remember, God is very inventive and creative in how he speaks to us and will use unique ways to create a conversation with us. Once you begin listening purposely to his voice, he will often speak to you in other ways, especially through others, through dreams, and who knows, perhaps even in a vision like he did with Peter. In your desire to get to know him, he will continue to make himself available to you and reveal many different things to you. Be on the watch, because again, he deeply desires to be your friend and hear from you and speak to you in evident and astonishing ways.

But beyond this, Jesus also shares with us another important element of prayer—it is so that he can provide for us. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7) Not that we will move to a health and wealth gospel, but it is right there in black and white and in plain English—God wants us to have what we wish and what we need. Now, will he always give us what we want? Absolutely not. But he will give us more than what most ask for. What I have found is that most people don’t “ask” as Jesus commanded. They live meek and mildly and don’t think they are deserving of what God truly wants to give them.

What might be some of the things that the Father might want to give us? How about:

A restored life for a friend who has had a string of broken life-situations in their lives.

Our material needs where we are not always living paycheck to paycheck and can actually have enough money to get the things we need, and some of the things we want.

A thriving and intimate marriage that lasts beyond fifty decades.

An inviting home where many enter its doors and find safety, joy and rest.

Children who follow God in their own lives and have a future.

The end of a temptation which has followed us for years.

A long-lasting friendship in which we can be ourselves and share our joys and secrets.

Even something as non-consequential as when you are looking for a parking spot in a busy downtown.

Let me light-heartedly explain that last one. Ever since I met Julie, I’ve always done something which she has always thought was weird, but at the same time, she has been amazed by. What is it? I sometimes pray for parking spots. Some may find it disrespectful or flippant with my prayer life, but in almost every case, God answers my prayers evoking his words of “asking.” Just a month ago we were in Washington D.C. and had to park downtown. Looking out at the streets, there was no way we were going to find a spot. It was a Saturday. It was 1pm and the busiest time of the day. And it was in the heart of where everything was. True to form, after looking for a spot for fifteen minutes, I simply asked, Lord, I need a parking spot. I kid you not, thirty seconds later as we neared our destination, right across the street from the National Gallery of Art sitting there was one open spot. It is true, God wishes to invade every aspect of our lives—even when it requires the need for having a spot to park your car in a crowded downtown!

At the end of day, God wants us to ask. As Robert Hamil wrote “God is not a power or principle or law, but he is a living, creating, communicating person—a mind who thinks, a heart who feels, a will who acts, whose best name is Father.” No different than me as a father to my sons, I want to give them good things and this is how the Father relates to me. As another example of this from our family, I have another good illustration. When it comes to our two sons, they each have unique, but different personalities. As a case in point, one of my sons is always asking for stuff from me. Hey dad, will you buy _______________ for me? Hey dad, can we go to the library? Hey dad, want to watch a movie with me? Even when I am not in the mood to watch a movie, I usually consent and do what he asks. On the other hand, my other son rarely asks anything of me—he is very unselfish, almost to a fault. Even though I love both of my son’s equally and dearly, my son who is always asking me for things, probably over the long run “gets” more from me than my other son, simply because he asks for more. Now granted, my other son is not left without any clothes on his back or doesn’t get anything at all, but if he were to ask more from me, I would treat him no different than his brother. If it was good and appropriate, I would in most cases give him what he asks for.

If I apply this same concept to my life, this is how it works with our Father as well. Jesus made his teaching very clear, Those who ask, get. As Matt Redman wrote in one of his worship songs, “Nothing is too much to ask now that I have said I am yours.” So God asks you at this moment, What do you want from me? And don’t make it just one thing. Ask away and see what he does and what he gives. As the great missionary Hudson Taylor penned:

The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see mighty works of Divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, ‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’